


Here With Me

by below_the_starry_clusters_bright



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force Bond, SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-02-16 20:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/below_the_starry_clusters_bright/pseuds/below_the_starry_clusters_bright
Summary: “You know, for someone without parents, you’ve mastered the look of disappointment.”Rey draws in a shaking breath at Kylo's words. She isn’t sure if jibes about her family will ever not hurt, even now she knows the truth about them.“That was a cruel thing to say,” she says in a carefully steady voice.Kylo nods, his eyes intent on hers. “I’m a cruel man.”“You don’t have to be.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I've seen this amazing, life-ruining movie five times now and it's probably time I posted something. Your typical post-movie Force Bond oneshot. Enjoy! :)

* * *

  

The moment that damn pressure builds back up in her head, Rey throws open the nearest door and half-runs into whatever room is behind it. The Falcon’s supply closet, long since cleaned out, is a tight fit. Rey leans as far back into the metal shelves as she can and takes a deep breath, bracing herself. Apprehension, undercut with fear, ripples through her. The bond hasn’t activated itself since Rey stared down at a kneeling, fragmented Kylo Ren, and closed the door on him. In the four days since then, she’s poured every bit of mental strength she has into blocking out all thoughts of him. The bond, apparently, does not acknowledge the effort.

Kylo Ren – not Ben Solo, not anymore – appears in front of her. Just like all the times before, it feels as though the air has been sucked out of the atmosphere. There’s only him, and her, and the echo of their shared betrayal. It lies between them, buzzing with anger and a regret so bitter Rey can almost taste it.

Kylo stares at her. His eyes widen and his lips tremble, as though he’s about to say something. Then his expression hardens and he draws himself up to his full, intimidating height. Rey pushes down the instinct to draw further backwards into the shelves. He’s too big for this cramped space; if she wanted to, Rey could reach out a hand and rest it on his chest. But no. The time for soft touches and softer words has passed, murdered in a throne room along with so many other enemies.

“Where are you?” Kylo demands.

Rey could laugh at the assumption that she’d tell him anything. His tone is so imperious – but then, he commands an empire now. Her mirth fades.

“A supply closet,” she says.

Kylo’s jaw tics. “Be more specific.”

“An empty supply closet.” Rey narrows her eyes in thought. “You can’t track us,” she guesses. “Not on your tech and not through our bond. Our connection isn’t that strong.”

“No.” Resolve solidifies in Kylo’s gaze. “Not yet.”

“Not ever,” Rey snarls. “I’m going to learn how to block you out, and when I –”

She cuts off at the muted sound of footsteps and conversation in the hallway outside. The action, as well as the frantic flick of her eyes to the door, betrays her. Kylo tilts his head.

“You’re hiding,” he says slowly. “You don’t want anyone to know about this.”

“ _This_ being my secret mental link to the biggest tyrant in the galaxy?”

Kylo’s eyes flash. Rey breathes heavily and looks away. Her thoughts are clouded with anger and sorrow and more hurt than she wants to examine, but she still has to play this carefully. If Kylo thinks that she’s keeping secrets, he could use the threat of exposure against her.

“I told Leia,” she says, looking back up. “And I’m going to tell Finn.”

“You’re lying. You haven’t told anyone for the same reason I haven’t.” His expression might have wavered when hearing his mother’s name, and darkened at the reminder of Finn, but now he looks at her with something disturbingly close to softness. “They wouldn’t understand.”

He’s right, of course. Rey hasn’t told anyone. She wants to spit at him that it’s nothing more than shame curling in her gut, or fear that the fledgling Rebellion members will turn on her. But those insistences come with the memory of soft firelight and calloused, uncertain fingers. Things she doesn’t want to share or sully. Any more than they already have been, at least.

“This bond is a gift,” Kylo says, still with that same, awful resolve shining in his eyes.

“That Snoke created,” Rey points out.

Kylo scoffs. “I thought we’d established that it doesn’t matter how things begin?”

_You’re nothing._

_But not to me._

“Besides,” Kylo continues as Rey looks down, “if that’s true, then why can we still communicate? Snoke is dead.”

Rey doesn’t have an answer. She doesn’t have a single answer for anything that has happened in the last week, and not understanding is starting to grate at her sanity.

“Look, we can’t do this anymore,” she says, setting her features. “You chose your side, and I chose mine. Now, go back to your armies and I’ll go back to the people who actually want to make a difference in the galaxy.”

A sneer lifts Kylo’s lips. It’s an ugly expression which he follows with ugly words.

“I understand. You don’t want to be distracted from all your shiny new friends. There’s not as many as there used to be,” he amends with a slight nod, “but still more than enough.”

Rey’s seen that mocking glint in his eyes far too often, and she _hates_ it.

“You think I don’t want to talk to you because I have other friends now?” Her brow wrinkles. “You honestly, _truly_ believe that’s why I’m trying to shut down this connection?”

Stars, he’s more deluded than she’d realized. Kylo’s sneer fades. He stares down at her with a frown.

“ _Other_ friends?” he repeats. “We were never friends.”

Right again. They were both more and less than that. Rey chastises herself. Her words had been a slip of the tongue, a bemused attempt at understanding where his jealousy was coming from. A fool’s errand in every possible way. No one can understand Kylo Ren.

With a miniscule shift, Kylo leans forward. It might not have been perceptible in a larger space, but their already too-close proximity means that Rey is more attuned to him. She can’t move further backwards, and so lifts her chin and looks away in clear dismissal. Kylo blows a sharp, angry breath out.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says in a brittle tone. His eyes roam over her face. “Soon enough, you won’t even have the Resistance. You can’t run forever. Eventually you’ll settle. And when you do, the First Order will find you, and blast your ragtag little group of rebels off the face of whatever backwater planet you’re cowering on.”

Rey stares at him. Sorrow builds in her chest. She’d been so certain that Ben Solo would return if just given the opportunity. He’d taken that opportunity and threw it back in her face, with the same barely-restrained fury he now flung around threats of annihilation.

Kylo’s waiting for her reply. She can see it in his slow-growing uncertainty. Rey has nothing to say. Resignation weighs her tongue down. It must show on her face, for Kylo falters at her expression and then tries to cover it with an almost-smirk.

“You know, for someone without parents, you’ve mastered the look of disappointment.”

Rey draws in a shaking breath. She isn’t sure if jibes about her family will ever not hurt, even now she knows the truth about them.

“That was a cruel thing to say,” she says in a carefully steady voice.

 Kylo nods, his eyes intent on hers. “I’m a cruel man.”

“You don’t have to be.”

The words come out on a rush of breath. Kylo’s eyes widen, and he huffs out an incredulous laugh.

“You just can’t give up on this,” he says, staring at her like she’s something fascinating and new.

“I’m done chasing you,” Rey tells him. She tries to will down the heat coloring her cheeks. “You need to resolve the conflict yourself. But I _know_ there’s Light in you. You saved my life against Snoke’s orders.”

A smile touches Kylo’s lips, but there’s no humor in his eyes. He’s bitterly amused at most.

“You think I murdered Han Solo because of the Dark Side, and Snoke because of the Light. Have you ever noticed that you interpret the Force based on whether or not you like the person I’m killing?”

Rey opens her mouth, outraged, but Kylo isn’t done. He leans forward again, but this time Rey doesn’t react. She glares up at him, her head tilted at an uncomfortable angle, as he fixes her with a look of grim determination.

“I’m not giving up either, Rey. The Force showed me my path, and I will walk it with you by my side.”

“Maybe _I’ll_ walk it with you by mine.”

The words come out fiercer than she intended, more a snarl than anything, but Kylo’s features soften as though she’d whispered. His eyes flick between hers, tinged with confusion and more than a hint of suspicion. He must find something in her gaze, although Rey doesn’t know what she’s projecting other than harsh resolution. By his side, his gloved fingers twitch.

Rey glances down at them. If he offers his hand out to her again, she’s going to kick his ass.

“Rey…”

She looks up just in time to see him fade from view. The glimpse of his expression before he leaves brands itself into her mind. She’s never known such sorrow from a single person. Pity flares up before she clamps down on it.

No.

Ben Solo had his chance. If he claws his way up from inside his self-imposed prison every so often, it isn’t Rey’s problem.

It _isn’t_.

Her breathing is ragged as she closes her eyes and slumps down to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS. What an amazing response, thank you so much for your kudos, bookmarks and comments. They inspired me so much I wrote another chapter. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

  
Rey groans and blinks against the Falcon’s lights as they surge to life.

“Alright, guys, it’s a brand new day!” Poe’s voice carries through the makeshift sleeping quarters, waking those who haven’t already risen. “Up and at ’em, let’s go!”

Resistance members stand up to shake out the night’s discomfort, groaning as they do. Rey’s bones crack as she moves. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t ache even before spending night after sleepless night lying on a cold metal floor, but now there’s tension clinging to every inch of her.

She has to wait twenty minutes to use the fresher, and gets to stay in there for a disproportionately short amount of time. Feeling no more refreshed, Rey drags herself out and pushes one foot in front of the other until she’s in the Falcon’s main area. There are too many worried, muttering people gathered for her to feel comfortable. There are too many worried, muttering people on the Falcon period, even after the Resistance had dropped some of their number off on planets thought to still resist the First Order.

Rey slumps down in the booth beside her friends. On the table in front of them waits four steaming cups of caf. Poe pushes a cup towards her. Rey smiles her thanks and wraps her hands around it. The burn wakes her up, if nothing else.

Finn looks up with a double-take.

“Rey, you look terrible!”

“And a good morning to you, too,” Rey mutters.

“Right.” Finn scratches the back of his head. “Sorry.”

Rey shoots him a small smile. She isn’t mad at him; they’re both getting used to expressing concern for other people, and stars knows she isn’t a poet with her words either. Maybe if she was, there’d be five cups in front of her and the space next to her would be occupied by someone else. Someone too large, who’d complain about the cramped space and how it seemed much smaller than when he’d been here as a child. Rey takes a swig of caf before letting that thought get any further.

“I think Finn meant to say that you look really tired,” Rose offers.

Finn sends her a grateful look, but Poe rolls his eyes.

“You’re both awful at this. Watch and learn.” He turns to Rey with his usual friendly grin. “Hey, Rey. How’d you sleep?”

“Not great,” Rey says, playing along.

“See?” Poe says, raising his eyebrows at Finn and Rose. “Now you get to act all worried without flat out insulting her.”

“You’re like a friendship master,” Rose says, looking slightly awed.

“You’ll pick it up,” Poe says, waving off the compliment with a shake of his head. “You guys just have to interact with something other than pipes and Stormtroopers.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Finn drains his drink and leans over the table, closer to Rey. “You’re not sleeping?”

“The Falcon’s too crowded.” Even as she speaks, Rey can overhear three different conversations going on around her. “I can’t sleep with this many people near me.”

Her gutted home on Jakku had been many things, most of them bad, but it had been _hers_. She knows she’s safe here, but the desert scavenger within her jumps at every night-time cough and shuffle. Not to mention she’d woken too many times to the pain of a searing red lightsaber slashing across her chest, only to realize that it had been a nightmare.

“You can take one of the bunks now,” Rose suggests. “They should be empty. The General’s communicating with an old ally and she probably won’t be done for awhile.”

“No,” Rey says hastily. “No, it’s fine.”

She needs to be useful. She needs to make herself essential, if she can. That way, even if her bond with Kylo Ren is discovered, she won’t be forced to leave. Sleeping on the job in Jakku would have meant starvation. Sleeping on the job here could mean something worse: abandonment, isolation, the disappointed looks of everyone she has come to care for.

“It’s a good idea, Rey,” Poe says. “We need you sharp. Go lie down for a couple of hours and we’ll wake you up if we need to.”

Rey sighs. If _Poe Dameron_ is suggesting sleep, then she must be a fright to behold. The bunks on the Falcon have been reserved for the older members of the Resistance, but everyone who Rey can think might occupy them is standing around her. It’s so tempting to sleep on something soft.

“You’ll wake me up if there’s even a hint of anything,” she says sternly, pointing her finger at Finn, Poe, and Rose in turn.

“Promise,” Finn says with a nod. “Now, go.”

She should’ve fought harder to stay, Rey thinks as she makes her way to the actual sleeping quarters. But Poe’s right, they need her sharp. One more sleepless night on the floor and she’ll be no good to anyone.

She slips into the empty room, locks the door, and sinks down into the first bunk she comes across. She’s asleep in seconds.

It feels like no time has passed at all when she wakes. Rey takes stock of her body, and sighs. Sleep didn’t help much. There’s a bad taste in her mouth, her bones are sore, she has a headache, and – wait. That isn’t a headache. She knows that pressure.

Kylo Ren is here.

Rey scrambles into a sitting position, and moves her hands for leverage in case she needs to launch herself off the bed.

Kylo Ren is here and… staring intently at the wall perpendicular to the one against Rey’s bunk. His head turns a fraction at the sound of her bedcovers jostling, but he still doesn’t look at her. Rey wonders what he sees wherever he is. A throne room, probably.

“How long have you been here?” Rey asks, her mouth dry.

“Not long,” he says. “A few minutes.”

Even though she’s fully clothed, Rey wants to snatch up the blankets and hold them against her chest. She feels so damn exposed.

“You just, what, stood there and watched me sleep?”

“I tried to leave,” Kylo tells the wall. “But the Force wouldn’t allow it. And I wasn’t watching you sleep.”

Rey swallows. Whatever games the Force is trying to play with her, she isn’t interested.

“I don’t want you here,” she tells Kylo.

Kylo’s eyes flicker downwards. He turns to her, gaze averted, and nods once.

“I know.”

He looks back up, and seems to lose whatever he’d been about to say next. His eyes dart to a point beside Rey’s bunk, once, twice. Out of habit, Rey turns around to check what keeps drawing his focus. Even as she moves, she knows it’s foolish. He can’t see her surroundings, he’d told her that during their first bond conversation. His physical appearance in the hut on Ahch-To had been a fluke, powered by – _sparks of anticipation, longing, desire, flaring together and ready to ignite_ – the Force. So, no. He can’t see anything.

Except.

There’s a medallion right where he’s staring. Its chain is looped around a light fixture, and the burnished gold gleams in the dim light.

“Can you see that?” Rey demands, whipping her neck back around to stare at Kylo, who quickly meets her eyes.

“See what?” he asks, too casually.

“You can,” Rey breathes. “You can see where I am.”

For five full seconds she can only stare, mouth agape, horrified at the implication. Then panic sets in, and her mind starts to whir with consequences. She’ll have to leave the Resistance, or else risk revealing their location once they find another base. She’ll have to become a hermit, just like Luke, and go back to that damned island. She’ll have to make friends with the Caretakers who _hate_ her, and catch fish with implausibly long sticks, and be forced to confront the same soul-breaking loneliness, day in, day out.

She doesn’t notice that Kylo has moved until he’s kneeling in front of her. Through her haze of dread, Rey takes quick stock of the new position. She’s still perched on the bunk, but even on his knees Kylo’s taller than her. The new closeness means he could reach forwards and wrap his hands around her throat. Is that why he’s kneeling? Is it out of submission or kindness? Should she look at him as an enemy or a…not-enemy? _Friend_ has already been rejected, _ally_ is a lie. There’s no word to describe what they were, or almost were, to each other. Maybe the definition lies in that. He was her Almost.

Kylo reaches out a gloved hand, but stills it in the space between them. He rests it on his knee instead. Rey isn’t sure whether she’s relieved.

“It’s alright,” he says, and Rey will never understand how a voice so gentle can come from such a monster of a man. “Don’t worry. I can’t see all of it.”

Rey swallows. He’s reassuring her, as though it wouldn’t be a giant tactical advantage for him to be able to see her surroundings. As though, in the face of Rey’s fear of loneliness, that doesn’t matter to him.

“I told you the bond would grow stronger,” he says.

Rey nods. “Yeah, you told me a lot of things.”

“All of them true,” Kylo says, an edge to his voice. “I’ve never lied to you, Rey.”

There’s an urging intensity to his gaze, as though it matters whether or not she believes him. She could take a pebble from a mountain, but there’d still be a mountain there. The same goes with Kylo Ren and his sins.

A minute passes in silence. Rey feels like an idiot for panicking so openly. She casts around for something to say, but there are so many potentially unsafe conversations between them that it takes her awhile to think of anything.

“You look like you’ve seen that necklace before,” she says, jerking her head towards the medallion.

Kylo glances at it again and nods. The softness with which he had looked at Rey is gone, replaced with stern eyes and tight lines around his mouth.

“I won it the first time I managed to beat Han Solo at sabacc,” he says. “I wound it around that fixture, right above my bunk, so that it was the last thing I saw before I went to sleep.”

Rey blanches. “This was your bunk?”

“I stayed here a few times as a child, whenever Solo deigned to drag me along on whatever scam he’d dreamed up.” The lines around his lips loosen, although the smile that appears instead isn’t kind. “He hated to lose, especially when he worked so hard to cheat.”

Rey is still stuck on the fact that she’s been sleeping where Ben Solo once rested his head. A part of her wants to leap up and shake herself off like an animal, maybe set the bed on fire for good measure. But there’s also a small part of her that sees the inadvertent sharing as another thread weaving them closer together.

Weaving her, inextricably, closer to a man who could murder his own father and then disdain his unscrupulous ways of winning at cards.

Rey leans back, creating space between her and Kylo. The aftermath of their fight in the throne room might still feel like a nightmare, but she can’t treat it as such. She can’t leave it behind in her sleep and pretend it doesn’t have any impact in the real world.

Kylo drops his gaze. Resignation bears down on his shoulders. Rey feels its echo in her chest. They might be able to feign casual conversation, but reality is always poised to swoop in and drag them back to the topics that divide them.

Rey entrenches herself in that reality.

“Next time the bond brings you to me when I’m asleep,” she begins in a cold voice, “then shout, or something, to wake me up. Don’t just stand there watching me.”

A muscle tics in Kylo’s jaw.

“I told you, I wasn’t watching you sleep.” As though to prove himself, he nods to the side. “There are thirty-seven dents in that wall. I counted them before you woke up. A lot.”

If the awkward words had formed any other sentence, Rey might have found them endearing. As it is, her breath catches in her throat. If he could see the wall well enough to count its flaws, then it isn’t just her immediate surroundings he can see. The whole room must be visible to him. Kylo draws in a sharp breath, understanding the implication of what he’s said just moments after she does.

 _I can’t see all of it_. It might not have been a lie, maybe the wall opposite Rey still appeared to Kylo as his own surroundings, but it was far enough from the truth that Rey snarls at him. Before Kylo can comfort her – or threaten, or insult, or reassure – the bond severs, and Rey is left alone in Ben Solo’s old bunk.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

  
This time, the Force brings Rey to him. Kylo stands in profile to her, distracted by the datapad he holds in his gloved hands. The edges of the Falcon’s grimy walls bleed into his sleek throne room. Rey is overwhelmingly grateful she had asked for private space to meditate on the Jedi texts. The texts were mainly variations of _Don’t give into the Dark Side_ , so she’d soon given up on them. She’ll pretend to still need the room for as long as this bond is active, though. Best to be somewhere Kylo can’t eavesdrop. It seems like only a matter of time until the bond evolves into full immersion, and she needs to be far away from any sensitive material when it does.

“I see learning how to block me out is going well,” Kylo says. There’s humor, maybe even affection, in his gaze when he turns to look at her.

Even from a distance, he looks tired. Rey feels a twinge of concern before she can stop herself. Of course he’s tired. They’re all tired.

“I could say the same for you,” Rey says.

“Who says I’m trying?”

Logic. Decency. Common sense. Things he hasn’t shown an abundance of so far.

Keeping an eye on him, Rey ventures forwards and moves around the large chamber. She doubts Kylo would be this calm if there was any valuable information lying around, but it can’t hurt to check. Black curtains encase the space, probably put up after crimson ones were torn down. Rey tries to grasp an edge and yank it back, but her hand passes through the fabric. She pulls back, frustrated but not surprised. With the weight of Kylo’s gaze on her, she travels around half of the room and stops just before stepping back into the Falcon’s walls.

“How much can you see?” Kylo asks.

He sounds politely curious, with none of the heart-stopping panic Rey felt when she realized he could see her surroundings. But then, why would he be worried? He’s not the one being hunted.

“Enough,” Rey says.

She continues to look around, perplexed for a moment that it looks nothing like what she remembered. It takes an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that it isn’t the same throne room. The First Order could hardly return to Snoke’s ship once Vice Admiral Holdo had finished with it.

“We had to leave the old ship,” Kylo confirms dryly, tracking her gaze if not her thoughts. “The clean-up would’ve been a nightmare. Also, another ship punched a hole through it.”

“That does complicate things.”

Kylo huffs. “Of course, it’s still in better condition than the Millenium Falcon.”

Rey glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it. His tone is hard but without bitterness, as though he’s testing out ways to tease without quite understanding how to do it. Too intense in everything, even jokes.

“You’re still on that piece of junk, then?” he asks.

“I’m not telling you anything,” Rey says, and then slants an almost-hopeful look at him. “Unless you’d like to tell me where you are, and also outline all of the First Order’s strategies for the next few months?”

Kylo’s lips twitch. “You already know where I am.”

“How am I supposed to know which ship has a throne room?”

“Trick question. The Supreme Leader has a throne room on all of the First Order’s larger vessels.”

Rey snorts. “Seems excessive.”

“It is.” Kylo’s mouth pulls down into a frown as he surveys the room. “It’s a complete waste of space and resources. It’s also not my problem. At least no one complains to me about budgets anymore.”

“They did before?”

He shrugs. “I break a lot of things.”

There’s something deeply funny to Rey about Kylo Ren, scourge of the galaxy, being held accountable in the form of endless amounts of paperwork. Still, she doesn’t laugh. It doesn’t feel right when he’s still her enemy.

A hologram pops up on Kylo’s datapad. Its artificial light glitches in and out of view.

 _“Supreme Leader,”_ the man on it begins, nodding his head into a bow, _“there’s been an –”_

“Not now!” Kylo interrupts, his face contorted into a snarl.

Rey takes a step back and tries not to flinch. After his softness with her, his wryness and hints of amusement, she’d forgotten how he sounds when he’s with anyone else. It was somehow easy to forget that rage he carries, always bubbling beneath the surface. It reminds her of another day, another throne room.

_No, no, you’re still – holding on! Let go!_

Something always drags them back to the truth of their situation. Rey knows it, and so must Kylo. He thumbs the datapad off and throws it to the ground. Breathing heavily, he turns to stalk to a dais on which sits his throne. He throws himself into it but fidgets before he can get comfortable. Rey watches him as bitterness wraps itself around her chest. She hopes he never has a single restful moment on that thing.

“Was it worth it?” she asks him. “Was everything you did worth it for the chance to sit in that pretty chair?”

“Everything I did?” Kylo’s eyes narrow. He jerks forward and jabs a finger at her. “I saved your life. I betrayed my Master for you. I jeopardized everything I’ve worked for, _for you_.”

Rey shivers. It’s a heady and terrible thing to be wanted in this way.

“It all worked out, didn’t it?” she asks. “You got everything you wanted.”

“Not everything.” He fixes her with a glare. “Not yet.”

“Not ever,” Rey says automatically.

The rebuttal, so familiar by now, dies in the air. Rey deflates. They’re going around in circles. The same conversations, the same denials, the same promises that verge on threats. She’d put so much hope into something, some _one_ , who couldn’t fulfil it.

To her horror, her throat goes dry and there’s a tell-tale prickling in her eyes. Sure enough, her vision blurs a few seconds later. She’s so _tired_. It transcends the physical and digs into her bones in a deep weariness. If the Force has any kindness whatsoever, it’ll snap their connection before her tears start to fall.

Kindness comes from elsewhere. Kylo abandons his throne and crosses the room to stand before her. His eyebrows draw together as Rey shakes her head. Even this is too familiar. She gets upset, he comforts her. Hasn’t it gone this way for their last few conversations? It’s just another step in the cycle.

“You make me feel so alone,” Rey whispers as tears spill. “I really thought you would come back with me. And now to see you, but know you’re so far out of reach…”

Her breath catches and she looks down. She feels stupid, weak, pathetic, helpless, everything she’s ever feared she was. Kylo wavers, and then slowly removes one of his gloves. He lifts his hand and cups her cheek with impossible tenderness. Rey’s eyes dart to his, but she doesn’t draw away. Kylo brushes away a tear and lets his thumb linger on her cheekbone. He stands so close.

Rey turns her head into the warmth of his palm. She closes her eyes and loses herself in the moment. The Force hums around them both, contented and protective. For the first time in too long, Rey feels safe.

“There’s room on that dais for another throne,” Kylo murmurs. “Right next to mine.”

Rey opens her eyes and looks up. Sincerity shines bright in his eyes as he gazes back.

“There’s room in the Resistance barracks, too,” she says.

It’s a lie, but Kylo would never agree if he knew that, on top of everything else, he’d have to share sleeping quarters on the Millennium Falcon.

He doesn’t agree anyway.

“We’re too big for that world, Rey.” He strokes her cheek in light brushes. “It’d take a galaxy to contain us. That’s what I’m offering you.”

Rey shakes her head. “You know I can’t accept it.”

She tenses in case he lashes out, but Kylo keeps his thoughts to himself. In short, halting movements, he leans forward. Rey’s heart stutters in her chest, but rather than tilt his head sideways, he bows to rest his forehead against her own. His breaths are too shallow; they betray his nerves. Rey covers the hand still resting against her cheek with her own trembling fingers.

They stand there, eyes closed, until the bond breaks them apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this turned really painful??? Coming up: less angst, I promise, and some semblance of a plot. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your feedback. You are glorious glories who deserve the galaxy without strings attached.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

  
Although Han Solo probably would’ve insisted otherwise, the Millennium Falcon can’t fly forever. Once they reach the Outer Rim, Leia orders a stop at a trading post Rey has never heard of.

“Never thought I’d miss the ground this much,” Finn mutters as they disembark. He looks around and pulls a face. “Even _this_ ground.”

The trading post is not exactly a haven. Rey breathes in deep. The air is dusty, with the same undercurrent of stale sweat that’s permeated everything on the Falcon, but at least it’s something new. A melting pot of different species yell over each other in their own languages, all advertising wares laid out on worn blankets.

“Rey!” Leia calls after her, standing at the top of the Falcon’s ramp. “A word?”

“I’ll catch you up,” Rey tells Finn, and then trudges back up to where Leia stands in shadows.

The General looks at Rey with her usual kindness, but this time Rey can see shrewdness cut into it. Rey’s heart skips a beat. Does the General know about Rey’s communications with the enemy?

“You’re a survivor, Rey,” Leia says. “You know that sometimes you have to do what’s necessary, even if it’s unseemly.”

Rey nods in wary agreement. Principles had never filled her stomach on Jakku.

“The Resistance needs supplies, but we can’t access what little funds we have.” Leia glances out at the crowds with an enigmatic smile. “I’m sure if you spoke to some vendors here, very nicely, they might agree to donate some items to our cause.”

Rey narrows her eyes. “You want me to use the Force to trick them into giving you free stuff?”

“Yes.” Leia’s level tone does not change. “Will that be a problem?”

“No, not at all, I just wanted to be clear.”

Leia’s smile grows warmer. “Thank you. Remember: a little bit from a lot of people. We don’t want to draw suspicion, or take more than we need.”

Leia runs through a fairly standard list. The rations will be easy to get, and while the fashions of civilian clothes might cause some raised eyebrows, they’re simple enough to find, too. The only thing Rey anticipates any trouble with is the med-packs.

“They don’t have to be extensive,” Leia says with an understanding nod. “I know some Outer Rim territories can be primitive when it comes to medical care. Just get us what you can.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Leia clasps Rey’s hands in gratitude. Rey turns to leave, but hesitates. Her mind has been heavy with the future since her last conversation with Kylo. The bond is progressing too rapidly for comfort, and any day now the Resistance will find a new base. Rey needs to learn how to control the bond before then.

“I have a favor to ask you, too,” she says, making up her mind and turning back to Leia. “I can’t fight this war without more training. I know it’s a lot to ask right now, but give me a few days to go back to Luke’s island and see if he had anything, any relics or texts, that might help me.”

Leia purses her lips. “Were the books no help?”

“They’re mostly theoretical,” Rey says with a shake of her head. “I’m looking for more of a step-by-step guide on how to be a Jedi.”

“Straightforwardness was never a virtue of the Jedi,” Leia scoffs. “Why say in one page what you can say in seven hundred, using the extended metaphor of flowers?”

That’s what Rey’s afraid of. She had _at best_ skimmed the ancient Jedi texts, and even that had taken up precious time. She needs clear answers, as soon as possible, from a source she can understand.

“I know Luke’s academy was destroyed, but do you know if any of his teachings survived?”

Leia raises an eyebrow. “Only in my son, who doesn’t seem to be applying them anymore.”

Rey looks away. She’s managed to avoid any discussion about Kylo so far, but someone ought to know the truth about Ben Solo’s faltering steps back to the Light. He deserves that much, even if it was a straight slide back down into Darkness not long after.

“General –”

“Leia,” the older woman corrects with a wry smile. “Much as I’d love to have you, you’re not an official member of the Resistance.”

“Leia,” Rey repeats. It makes her feel both better and worse about what she’s about to say. “I might be gone more than a few days.”

Leia’s smile fades. Rey already regrets speaking, but pushes through.

“There’s a – a connection between me and Kylo Ren. Through the Force. It lets us communicate as though we were in the same place. To begin with, we only saw each other. But now the bond is growing stronger, and I’m afraid that he’ll be able to track me through it if I don’t learn how to block him.”

Leia stares at her as the words, and their implications, sink in.

“You should have told me sooner, Rey.”

Rey’s chest hollows. This must be the parental look of disappointment that Kylo had accused her of being so good at.

“There’s more,” Rey says. She bites her lip. “I didn’t kill Snoke. Ben did.”

The cane Leia clutches shifts as she puts her full weight onto it. Heartbreak and hope flit over her features before she regains herself.

“What happened?” she asks, and to her eternal credit her voice doesn’t shake.

What happened. Isn’t that the billion-credit question. Rey takes a deep breath and tries to speak with no emotion.

“I thought I could bring Ben back. I went to him, but he took me to Snoke. Snoke told him to kill me. Ben killed Snoke instead.” The bare facts are the only way Rey can think to tell the story without her own judgements clouding things, but omitting all the moments of humanity Kylo had shown seems like a betrayal. She carries on anyway. “Ben asked me to join him and I said no. We fought over the lightsaber, I escaped, and he –”

“Went straight back to the Dark Side,” Leia finishes.

Rey wants to argue, but can’t figure out how. The words are true but they feel wrong. She nods anyway.

“Have you spoken with him since Crait?” Leia asks.

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you anything that might indicate the First Order’s next plan?”

“No.” And then, sheepishly, “I _did_ ask, though.”

Leia sighs deeply. Rey imagines it as the sound of a wounded mother and, not the for the first time, remembers how much the woman in front of her has lost.

“The people I love keep going up against that boy,” Leia murmurs, “and they don’t come back to me alive. I want to believe that Ben isn’t lost, but I can’t keep going on blind faith. I need him to give me _something_.”

_Soft voice, soft eyes, soft touch._

_You’re not alone._

_Please._

“He saved my life,” Rey offers with an awkward shrug.

“Unfortunately, caring for someone isn’t exclusive to the Light.” Leia’s lips twist in distaste. “Remind me to tell you the story of Anakin Skywalker someday.”

_Caring for someone_. This, coming from Kylo’s mother. Rey thanks everything that is good and pure in the galaxy that there’s no reason to tell Leia about the hand-holding.

“General – Leia – I know it’s a lot to ask, but _please_ don’t mention the bond to anyone else. At least, not until I know how to control it.” Rey looks down the ramp and onto the dusty strip of land her friends had disappeared down. “They wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m not sure _I_ understand,” Leia says, but she nods. “But I’ll keep it quiet, unless it’s vital to do so otherwise.”

Rey blows out a grateful breath. “And I can leave to search out more Jedi texts?”

“You don’t need my permission for that. As I said, you’re not an official member of the Resistance.” Leia’s lips stretch into a smile. “Good luck explaining it to Finn, though. I’m not sure he’ll let you go now that he’s finally got you back.”

Rey doesn’t return the smile. It isn’t as though she wants to leave her first and best friend, not when they’ve only just reconnected, but she can’t be selfish. If she does the right thing now, there’ll hopefully be time for everything else later.

“I’ll get started on the donations,” Rey says, psyching herself up.

“Rey.”

Rey turns back around at Leia’s voice. Her tone is so similar to Luke’s, right when he had warned her not to go to Ben Solo. Maybe Rey should have listened then. Maybe Rey should listen now.

“Don’t let the man you want my son to be blind you to what he really is,” Leia says. A lifetime of disappointments etch themselves into her skin. “Holding onto that kind of misplaced hope… It’s no way to live.”

The weariness in Leia’s gaze attests to that. Still, Rey can’t agree. She’s never known when to give up on a lost cause, and she doesn’t intend to start with Ben Solo. Shutting down their connection for awhile will be painful, but she has to trust that it’s for the best. Once she knows how to control it, she can open it back up and simply steer Kylo away from anything he mustn’t learn.

Rey grimaces at the thought. It’s probably the same kind of misplaced hope Leia is warning her about. If Rey thinks that Kylo is just going to accept her shutting him out, however temporarily, she’s out of her damn mind.  
  


* * *

  
With a single gesture of Kylo Ren’s gloved hand, a trembling man is brought before him. The man falls to his knees before Kylo’s throne. Kylo considers telling him to stand up, but he isn’t yet over the novelty of others kneeling before him. How many times has he been in that same position, in that same spot, eyes glued downwards and body braced for punishment? No, he’ll revel a little while longer.

“You’re a scholar?” he asks.

The man flinches at his voice. “I am, Supreme Leader. Specializing in Jedi and Sith lore.”

“Excellent.” Kylo leans forward in anticipation. “Tell me what you know about Force bonds.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, maybe Kylo’s going to do the decent thing and block out the Force bond so that Rey doesn’t have to spend every waking moment terrified she’s going to accidentally betray Resistance secrets and get her friends killed and nope he’s definitely going to do the bad thing.
> 
> Once again, you are all the light of my life, thank you for your feedback. Updates won’t be daily from here on out as I’m travelling back home for Christmas (Happy Holidays!) but I’ll be as speedy as I can.
> 
> Sound off in the comments, how many times have you seen The Last Jedi?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha oops surprise chapter after I promised myself I'd chill. Who am I kidding. Zero chill. Especially when it comes to you guys, you amazing lil stealers of zen. Thank you for your continued feedback. Happy Holidays!

* * *

  
Finn doesn’t let Rey go for a long time. Rey burrows herself in the embrace. As much as she refuses to say a permanent goodbye on a dusty market street on an inconsequential planet, Rey knows her reality. In times of war, every hug could be the last. She takes a deep breath and gently leaves Finn’s arms.

“No more dashing heroics,” she warns him. She wants to sound firm, authoritative, but her voice wavers with the tears she’s trying not to shed. “Just stay alive.” She sniffs and looks at Poe and Rose. “That goes for you guys, too.”

“Back atcha,” Poe says. His smile fades as he surveys her ship. “You sure that thing’s going to be enough?”

The ship Rey has taken – borrowed, _borrowed_ , she’ll bring it back – has all the decrepit features of the Falcon and none of the care poured into it. Kylo would never let her live it down if he saw it.

“Enough to get me there and back,” Rey says with a shrug. “No one will be looking for me on this thing.”

“That’s because it should have been scrapped for parts twenty years ago,” Poe snorts.

“You’re sure you’ve got everything?” Finn asks, fussing over Rey. “All the tech you need to get back to us?”

“Yes.” To her shame, Rey feels a twinge of annoyance. She still isn’t used to anyone looking out for her, and it’s easy to mistake care for pity. In a kinder voice, she says, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Finn doesn’t look convinced. “Lot of maniacs out there.”

“Rey’s just got to make sure she’s one of them,” Poe says, clapping Rey on the shoulder. “Best get going, kid. We don’t want to stay in one place for too long.”

One more round of hugs is tempting, but Poe’s right. Rey boards her stolen – _borrowed_ – ship and punches in the co-ordinates for Ahch-To. As the console lights up in preparation for take-off, Rey sighs. The island might have been the site of most of her poor choices recently, but it was also where the bond between her and Ben flourished. If they connect once she returns, will Kylo recognize anything of it? The hut had been blown apart before he’d had the chance to get a good look outside, but he might remember the landscape, or the ancient stone huts. Rey herself can’t remember anything of their final meeting there aside from a soft touch and her own excited nerves.

She stiffens. Kylo might not recognize Ahch-To, and wouldn’t know how to get there even if he did, but he could easily glance at her co-ordinates if he appears on the ship anytime soon. Rey throws herself out of the chair and finds the blanket she’d bought – _stolen_ – in preparation of chilly nights. She drags it over the console and lets it hang, rearranging it until every piece of navigation tech is covered by a bundle of fabric. It isn’t elegant, but it’ll do.

Three hours into the journey, the Force builds in her mind and Kylo appears in the chair beside her. Rey tenses. If the bond has developed, he might be able to touch the things around them. He might be able to rip the blanket away and learn her intended path. If he tries, Rey might actually tear his hand off in desperation.

“You’re on a different ship,” Kylo says, unaffected by the change of scenery as he cranes his neck to look at everything. “It’s still a piece of junk, though. That’s nice and consistent of you.”

“And you’re still offering your unwanted opinions,” Rey says, raising an eyebrow at him. “Which is nice and consistent of _you_.”

Kylo doesn’t like having his words thrown back at him, but he’s in what passes for a good mood. His scowl is much less ferocious than usual.

“The Resistance must not be paying very much if this is what you have to resort to,” he says. “You know, I could give you an armada.”

“You could also give me a break from your recruitment speeches.”

Kylo leans back in his chair and sulks. The expression should be ridiculous on a grown man, and it’s certainly far from the threatening mien she’s seen from him before, but Rey’s oddly drawn to the full pout of his lips.

“You’re in a delightful mood today,” he mutters, breaking the spell.

Rey shakes herself out of it. “You bring out the best in me.”

“I could if you let me.” At Rey’s glare, Kylo smirks. “No recruitment speeches, right.”

Rey’s heart clenches. He looks and sounds so much like his father. It would start a fight to mention it, so she keeps quiet. Kylo, for once, seems to be in a chatty mood.

“What’s this about?” he asks, nodding at the blanketed console. His confusion gives way to a scowl. Rey doesn’t need the Force to sense his prickle of annoyance. “Ah. So I can’t see your destination. Clever.”

Rey shrugs. “Can’t be too careful.”

“The Force didn’t connect us just to keep us apart,” Kylo says, his mood darkening. “You can’t avoid me forever.”

“Not forever,” Rey agrees. “Just long enough.”

Kylo scoffs. “You still think you can break this bond?”

Rey doesn’t answer. She wishes she could fiddle with the controls, just for something to occupy her hands. Her mind is always so much clearer when she’s tinkering. She’ll blame a clouded mind on what she says next.

“I told your mother about our connection.”

Kylo wrenches around in his seat and stares at her. Hurt flashes over his angry expression. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it doesn’t just affect us,” Rey says, keeping a steady tone. “You’re telling me you haven’t tried to figure out a way to reverse-engineer this bond and use it to find the Resistance?”

For a moment, Rey thinks he might burst into an impassioned speech about how he would _never_ use their sacred bond for something as petty as victory. It’s a giddy, delirious moment, and it passes in the time it takes for Kylo’s gaze to lower and his jaw to set. Rey nods.

“Well, then.”

She’s disappointed in him. A ridiculous reaction to have, but there it is.

“I like having something that’s just ours,” Kylo says after a long moment. He stares at his hands. “Something I don’t have to share or explain. It’s the purest thing about me, and that’s only because you’re a part of it.”

“You’d still use it to hurt people, though,” Rey says quietly. She thinks of Finn, of Poe and Rose, of all the other Resistance fighters trying _so hard_ to save the galaxy. She thinks of Leia, who has lost so much and still stands to lose more. Her temper spikes. “When you find me, what will you do? Kill me?”

“No!” His features blanch, like he’s horrified at the suggestion.

“Fight me?” Rey demands. “Capture me? _What?_ ”

“I don’t know!” Kylo snaps. His fists clench and unclench and he glares ahead. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

That doesn’t comfort Rey. If anything, it sets her more on edge. A solid battle plan is something she can predict and fight against. Kylo’s impulsive whims are a different, dangerous beast.

He shifts in his chair. Rey turns to him. The Supreme Leader of the First Order looks up at her with Ben Solo’s eyes.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promises. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of anymore.”

His determination burns into Rey. Before she can reply, the bond breaks.

Rey slams her hands down on the blanketed console. Why is he promising to protect her when _he’s_ the one she needs protecting from? And, damn it all, why does she _believe_ his promise? She smacks the console again. It gives a baleful bleep in reply.

“Shut up,” she tells it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your feedback, darlings. Hope you enjoy the latest chapter!

* * *

  
The Caretakers of Ahch-To are, unsurprisingly, less than thrilled at Rey’s return. They freeze at the sight of her, and then wave their arms and gurgle their displeasure.

“I know, I know,” Rey mutters as she climbs past them.

It wasn’t as though she’d planned to return here. She thought she’d ship herself off to Ben Solo, give a tearful speech about the virtues of the Light, and together they’d go back to the Resistance with a solid, war-ending plan in place.

Instead, she’s alone on Ahch-To, needing help, fending off the vicious stares of the residents, and climbing a thousand kriffing steps just to get to…charred stumps poking up from the ground where an ancient tree once stood.

For a still moment, Rey stares. Then,

“That was _not_ me,” she says, turning around to the gaping Caretakers.

They shuffle away, their indignant noises growing fainter as they retreat. Rey looks back at the smoking ground. She feels like she should do something dramatic before it, like fall to her knees or scream out _No!_ but in truth, she isn’t that bothered. It’s annoying to have wasted the trip here, but the tree hadn’t given that much in the way of helpfulness before. It probably wouldn’t have been that useful this time, either.

So Rey nods and makes her slow way down to a familiar collection of huts. The Caretakers are in the midst of reconstructing the one Luke had blown apart, but Rey doesn’t linger at the sight of it. Too many memories, too little time to dwell on them. Instead, she shoves open the metal door to Luke’s hut and steps inside.

The late Skywalker’s things lie undisturbed. Rey sighs quietly and runs a finger over the eclectic trinkets lying on a stone shelf. They might be powerful Force artefacts, or they might be complete junk. She’ll bring them back with her to give to Leia, just in case they’re significant.

“Don’t touch my things.”

Rey _screams_. She pivots and lashes out with her staff until it swipes through the figure standing before her and rebounds off the wall. The effort reverberates through her bones, but Rey barely notices the pain. She stares, wide-eyed, at the scowling apparition in front of her.

“You hit me with a stick!” he – it? – accuses.

“I thought you were a ghost!” Rey shrieks, still holding her staff aloft.

“So you _hit me with a stick_?” The figure shakes his head. “You need to stop doing that.”

Rey doesn’t answer. She looks the robed man in front of her up and down. It’s Luke Skywalker without a doubt. He looks exactly the same as Rey last saw him, down to the disgruntled expression. Except – sort of translucent and glowing around the edges. His mechanical hand is missing beneath the long sleeve of his robe. Rey frowns. Is this a vision? Is she dreaming?

“What are you?” she asks, lowering her staff.

“Go with your first instinct.”

Rey’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re a ghost?”

“A Force ghost,” Luke says with a nod.

He looks at her with deep gravitas, as though she’s supposed to understand what a Force ghost is. Rey presses her lips together and shrugs.

“How’s that different from a regular ghost?” she asks.

Petulance flits across Luke’s features. Rey feels like she’s ruined some grand introduction with her ignorance. She’s still sort of in shock that Luke Skywalker isn’t as gone as once thought. He’s still unbelievably unhelpful, though.

“There’s so much you don’t know,” he mutters.

Rey bristles. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?”

“ _You_ left,” Luke points out. He huffs, and his smile is an odd creature of bitter memory and fondness. “Running off in the middle of training to save someone you care about? Rookie mistake.”

Rey’s head aches with a swirl of embarrassment, defiance, and shame. She channels it all away from the urge to smash her staff against the wall until something breaks, and into a spitting stream of words.

“ _Yes_ , it was a stupid move, and _yes_ , I shouldn’t have done it, but it happened, it’s finished, and it’s time to move on and try to figure out what to do next!” Breathing heavily, she glares at Luke. “If you’re going to treat me like an idiot for doing something the great Luke Skywalker never would’ve done, we’re never going to get anywhere.”

Amusement softens the edges of Luke’s smile. It only riles Rey further. So now he’s laughing at her?

“Do you still have all your limbs?” Luke asks.

Rey blinks, her anger faltering in her confusion. “What?”

“Do you still have all your limbs?”

“I – yes?”

“Then your attempt went better than mine.” He’s silent for a moment, and then his lips twitch in ruefulness. “During my Jedi training with Master Yoda, the Force told me that Han and Leia were in danger. Master Yoda insisted that I stay, but I knew they would die if I didn’t help. So I, in my recklessness and pride, abandoned my training and went off to save my friends.” Luke lifts his forearm and nods to where his mechanical hand used to be. “It didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”

“You saved their lives, though,” Rey says, her eyes drawn to the empty space. “I mean, you must have done.”

“And everything I lost was worth that.” Even now, when he’s talking about another lifetime, Luke’s features are set with certainty. Then some of that righteousness fades. His expression wavers and reveals that ever-present sorrow that has remained even in death. “But I lost a lot. More than I thought I was capable of handling at the time.”

“The Force wouldn’t have told you they were in danger if it didn’t want you to do something about it,” Rey insists.

“The Force resists interpretation.” Luke sighs. “Haven’t you realized that yet?”

His tone is free of judgement (for once) but Rey still lowers her head. Luke’s right. She has to stop taking everything the Force shows her at face value.

“I keep forgetting,” she murmurs. “There’s still so much I don’t understand about my power, and I don’t have the time to learn it all. I came here to look for a shortcut.”

Luke shakes his head. “Shortcuts don’t always work out in the long run.”

“If I don’t take a shortcut now, there won’t _be_ a long run.” Rey’s almost hesitant to bring up the bond, given Luke’s reaction when he discovered it, but now isn’t the time for awkwardness. “I need a way to block the connection between me and Kylo Ren.”

“Can’t be done.”

Rey frowns, taken aback by the swiftness of Luke’s denial.

“ _You_ cut yourself off from the Force,” she says, trying to keep the irritation from her voice. “Why can’t I cut myself off from the bond?”

Luke’s starting to look strained, so Rey can only imagine how frustrated she must look. She’d thought they were done with these circuitous conversations which only ended when Luke deigned to teach her some vague lesson.

“You can’t pick and choose aspects of the Force,” Luke says with affected patience.

“Why not?”

“It isn’t possible,” Luke snaps. He takes a deep breath, which only infuriates Rey more. He’s dead, what does he need air for? He’s only doing it for show. “It’s possible to block the Force altogether, but I really wouldn’t recommend that right now.”

For once, Rey agrees with him. She needs as much power as possible for whatever upcoming fights she’ll be thrown into.

“Then what would you recommend?” she asks. “Bearing in mind that running off to an island and _staying there_ isn’t an option.”

Rather than get angry, Luke nods. His eyes gain back a hint of amusement.

“Yeah, you’d be surprised at how few problems that actually solves,” he says. He seems to chew on a thought for a moment before coming to a solution. “Follow me.”

Luke leads Rey outside and down winding paths to a small garden. Flowers, herbs, and even fruits grow in neat patches. Given the temperamental weather of Ahch-To, Rey’s surprised the tiny shrubs have thrived.

“There’s a tea you can brew that suppresses the Force,” Luke tells her. Rey’s head snaps up in interest. “It’s a temporary fix that I used when I first came to this island. I kept growing the ingredients, just in case.”

Rey’s eyes dart over the herbs. Excitement bubbles in her stomach.

“And I can keep drinking that until I find another solution?” she asks.

“It isn’t meant for long-term consumption,” Luke warns. “Suppressing the Force is unnatural. _I know_ saying that makes me a hypocrite,” he adds quickly once he sees Rey’s mouth fall open in outrage. “But there it is.”

“Can I make it right now?” Rey asks, brushing aside her annoyance. Luke can be as hypocritical as he wants as long as it means she gets results.

“Yes, but you’ll have to leave it to stew overnight.”

Rey nods eagerly. What’s one more day? The tea might not be a permanent fix, but it’s good enough for now. Under Luke’s direction, Rey plucks some fresh ingredients from the ground and retrieves others from jars on Luke’s shelf. She measures and grinds and pours and stirs, until there’s a foul-smelling concoction bubbling away in a pot hanging over a small fire.

“It’s… not the best taste,” Luke says, eyeing the mixture with disdain.

This from the man who drinks milk straight from an alien’s teat. Rey scrunches up her nose in anticipated disgust.

“Don’t drink it until tomorrow,” Luke reminds her. “And if you sleep on it and decide on another course of action, that’s fine too.”

Rey shakes her head. “I need to do this.”

She covers the pot with a threadbare blanket she finds in the hut. The last thing she needs are tea-drunk porgs flapping around the island.

By the time Rey’s back in her ship, her eyes are heavy and her body aches with tiredness. A night spent sleeping upright and cramped into a chair isn’t inviting, but she almost doesn’t care. She drags her blanket over herself and quickly falls asleep.

Awareness returns some time later, accompanied by gentle nudges against her arm. The world is soft and warm and dim around her. Rey shifts away from the pushes, but they’re insistent. She snuggles further into the bed with a quiet moan. The hand on her arm freezes. At the sound of a ragged breath, Rey breaks out of her sleep a little more.

She hadn’t fallen asleep in a bed, and there certainly hadn’t been anyone beside her. Rey sighs as she realizes what’s going on. The bond has activated and forced another intimate moment upon her and Kylo. The man himself sits up in his bed beside her, hunched in on himself as though it would burn him to touch her further. His black sleeping clothes show off his sharply defined arms. Rey tilts her head against the pillow to gaze up at him.

“Sorry,” he mutters, looking away from her. “You were sleeping.”

Right. Rey had told him, in stern tones, to wake her up if the bond ever connected them during sleep again. As warm and cozy as she is now, she can’t remember for the life of her why she had told him to do that.

Kylo shifts until the broad, tense lines of his back are to Rey. “I’ll take the floor.”

“No,” Rey says, before she can think. She blinks up at him with sleep-encrusted eyes. “It’s okay.”

Kylo turns and stares at her. Rey’s throat goes dry, but she doesn’t break eye contact. There’s a heartbreaking tenderness spreading across his expression as he looks down at her.

_We could’ve had this_ , Rey thinks to herself. And then, traitorously, _Maybe we still can._

Kylo lies back down in halting movements. He stretches out beside her, rigid and unblinking. An unfamiliar fondness blooms in Rey’s chest. They’re both so new to the idea of touch. Sleep dulls her self-consciousness. Tomorrow, the bond will be broken. What’s one more night of weakness?

“You can move closer,” Rey murmurs, rolling onto her side. Her hair splays out over the pillow. “If you want to.”

Kylo presses his non-scarred cheek into his pillow, mirroring Rey. Rather than edge towards her, he raises his arm and leaves his side open in invitation.

“If you want to,” he echoes in a low voice.

Heat ripples through Rey. The sheets drag beneath her body as she shuffles to Kylo’s side. He radiates warmth. Rey rests her head against his chest, and smiles to feel his heart racing. After a long minute, Kylo’s breaths even out and his heartbeat slows to a calming pulse. He curls his arm around her and rests his palm against her waist. Rey nestles into the crook his body creates.

_Protected_ , the Force murmurs as it swirls around them. _Strong._ _Loved._


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

  
Kylo wakes up with the unusual feeling of having had a good night’s sleep. He stretches and listens to his body crack, but doesn’t open his eyes. If he does, he’ll be confronted with the reality of an empty bed.

He’d drifted off to sleep after spending minutes with a racing heart and even faster thoughts. Was his arm too heavy around Rey? Was she uncomfortable? Was he hurting her? Was he holding her too tightly, even though it felt like she could never get close enough? All of these worries had coalesced in his mind and were only silenced when Rey sighed softly and nuzzled into his chest.

Kylo’s heart had stopped. He’d angled his head as far down as he could, torn between his need to see the expression on Rey’s face, and his determination not to disturb her sleep. He’d settled for listening to her deep, steady breaths. They’d sent a flood of calmness through him, and he had marveled at the sense of serenity that should have been a distant dream for someone like him.

_Rey_ should have been a distant dream for someone like him. Yet there she was, snuggled against him, soft and willing and precious in a way that had made his chest clench. That clench echoes now, the lonely morning after, and Kylo sighs. Even he, master of self-deception, can’t keep pretending there’s someone lying beside him. He groans and sits up. The cold air pricks up goosebumps on his arms. He scans the bed beside him and ridicules himself for the pang of disappointment he feels. It’s empty. Obviously.

The sheets are wrinkled, but Kylo doesn’t know if that was from Rey or his own restlessness. She had felt so real in his arms, but would she leave a physical trace behind? He drags his fingers over the ruffled fabric anyway. Warmth leeches into his skin, but that could just be his own desperate need lying to him. Every time Rey fades from view, he wishes he had something of her to hold onto, to remind himself that she’s out there somewhere, possibly thinking of him, perhaps wishing she had something of his, too.

Kylo throws the covers away and lets the sheets’ warmth, real and imagined, seep into the chill of his bedroom. Lying back and wishing Rey was with him wouldn’t do anything. If he wants her by his side, he’ll have to go out into the galaxy and bring her back.

The Force scholar he had summoned to the throne room had been little help. The man had shaken as he recited what scant knowledge he had on Force bonds, and almost whimpered when telling Kylo of just how deep the bond ran. Kylo had dismissed the man and ruminated alone on what he had learned. It seemed that his and Rey’s lives, not just their minds, were inextricably linked. It didn’t concern Kylo too much at the time – if he had to rely on anyone’s survival instincts to ensure his own safety, he would count on Rey’s – but in the days since, a nagging worry has compounded in his mind. Rey is a survivor, yes, but she’s impulsive. She’s loyal to a fault. If there’s a fight to be had, she’d be on the frontlines, swinging her weapon and roaring in fury.

She’d be magnificent.

Kylo shakes away the thought. Now isn’t the time to dwell on Rey’s many – _many_ – attributes. He showers and dresses with the swiftness that’s expected of him now more than ever. He can’t escape the expectations thrust upon him – nor the truth that he had dragged the weight of the world onto his shoulders and even now refuses to shrug it off.  
  


* * *

  
Rey wakes up cold and alone. The ghost of warmth and security lingers on her skin. She breathes in the stale air of the ship and exhales in an unsteady rush. This new loneliness takes some getting used to. At least on Jakku, she’d never known what she was missing. She’d had vague, half-formed ideas, yes, but nothing like the solid sensation of arms wrapped around her and soft breaths on the crown of her head. Nothing like feeling _safe_.

But it isn’t just about her safety, is it? It isn’t just about what she wants.

Minutes later, Rey sighs as she falls to her knees in the long grass beside the vat of tea. She drags a cup through the dark liquid and stares at it. A few gulps of this, and she’s shut out from the world around her. Shut out from Kylo.

Rey blocks out the memory of him staring up at her from the base on Crait as she closed the door on him, stony-faced. He’d pleaded with her with those damned soft eyes of his, but she’d had the strength to turn away. She needs that same strength now. Whatever Kylo feels for her does not extend to the rest of the Resistance, and Rey cannot stay separated from the rebels forever. She’s too much of an asset to them.

A plan forms the longer Rey looks into the murky tea. She’ll bottle as much as she can and bring it back to the Resistance with her, along with enough herbs to brew more if necessary. She can help her friends and scour the holonet for any useful information on becoming a Jedi, all while blocking out the bond. Maybe Luke will even deign to show up and offer his help.

Rey glugs down the tea before she can second-guess herself. It’s too bitter on her tongue and it coats her throat on the way down. She winces and tries not to gag.

“Told you,” Luke mutters, appearing beside her. “I’ve had some bad tea in my time, but that –”

Silence.

Rey glances up, alarmed, but there’s empty air where Luke’s ghost stood. She checks her surroundings just in case, but the only nearby movement belongs to a group of curious porgs slowly edging towards Rey’s discarded cup.

“Guess this stuff works quickly,” Rey mutters, pushing herself to her feet.

She closes her eyes, testing the tea’s effects by calling to the Force, but it slips through her fingers like the breeze. It hasn’t gone completely – she’ll probably need to drink more tea for that – but it’s faint enough to hopefully tamp down on the bond. Rey moves to fill her cup again.

_Sit down._

The whisper carries on the wind. Rey jerks around, alert and ready for a fight, but the area is deserted.

_Sit down._

The words are beseeching. Tension seeps out of Rey. She _could_ sit down for a few minutes. She’s so tired.

_Sit down._

Yes, she should. She has time. Rey lowers herself down into a cross-legged position and closes her eyes. Remnants of the Force swell in the crevices within her. They wash over the suppressing effects of the herbs Rey had mixed together, and drown out her resistance. What was she thinking, trying to quieten the Force? It _sings_ within her, pure and instinctual.

Her breaths even out as she slips into a meditative trance.  
  


* * *

_  
Sit down._

Kylo’s hand goes straight to the lightsaber at his waist. He gets to his feet with a speed that has the First Order officers in the throne room around him reeling.

“Supreme Leader?” Hux asks, glancing from Kylo to the officers with a perplexed frown.

“Get out,” Kylo says, his focus on the disembodied voice. It hadn’t been masculine or feminine, perhaps it hadn’t even been formed words, just a thought, a suggestion –

_Sit down._

– an _urge._

“This really is an imperative meeting, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, edging closer towards the throne.

Kylo throws the man a glare which stops him cold. Hux’s expression flattens in that way Kylo has come to know so well in such a short period of time, signalling that the General finds the situation frustratingly absurd and yet cannot directly speak out against it. At any other time, Kylo would enjoy it, perhaps even provoke it, but right now there’s one single need driving him.

“Get out!” he snaps.

The officers almost trip over themselves in their haste to leave. Hux’s lips thin, but he too obeys.

_Sit down._

The moment he is alone in the throne room, Kylo sinks to the ground. There’s something he needs to know, something the Force is pushing him towards, and he gladly falls into meditation to try and uncover what it is.

He sees a galaxy – _his_ galaxy – of stars and people and life and love and pain and fear and – it all melts away in the fiery glow of a golden bond, stretching across immeasurable distances, constantly expanding, overshadowing planets and comets, overshadowing everything, because what’s more important than this? Nothing, nothing, this is his fate, his destiny, _his_ , the only thing that’s ever been his, the only thing that matters – but no, not his, not just his, _hers_ , hers as well, theirs.

Stars pale against the glorious bond which shoots past them. It spits golden fire which puts every sun it passes to shame. Finally, it descends through the atmosphere of a planet and wraps its way around an island jutting up from the sea.

Kylo draws in a great breath and opens his eyes.

The vision fades.

His heart hammers.

He knows where Rey is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Force has had enough, y’all. Let’s get these two losers back together.
> 
> I'll be back to more regular updates after the insanity of this last week. Thank you a billion times for your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. We broke 1000 kudos with Chapter Six!
> 
> Finally, Happy New Year!! I wish you all health and happiness for 2018.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, kudos'ing, commenting and bookmarking, and also for not calling me out on making up words like kudos'ing. This chapter features some incredibly dubious science, but my excuse is that it's space , so just go with it. Enjoy! <3

* * *

  
It doesn’t occur to Kylo that he’s being impulsive until he’s engaging his shuttle’s hyperdrive and leaving the First Order’s flagship in his wake. It takes him another few minutes to even consider that dropping everything to immediately go and find Rey is a choice, not an order. It _feels_ like a compulsion, like the fulfilment of a promise he wasn’t aware he’d made. The bond overrides everything else. He doesn’t know what he’ll do once he sees Rey again. He just knows that he has to.

He focuses on this determination over the nervous anticipation unfurling in his stomach. He is the Supreme Leader, a man who answers only to the Force, and it has sent him on a sacred mission which could affect the stability of the galaxy. There’s no room for the way he wants to anxiously gnaw on his lip and wonder if Rey will be happy to see him. He isn’t a child. He doesn’t need anyone’s affection or approval.

Still, his mouth is dry and his fingers drum patterns against the dashboard.

The bond still shines brightly in his mind’s eye, navigating his way back to Rey. Kylo revels in it, in its strength and the comfort it brings, and then it –

– snaps. And fades.

Kylo stiffens.

He draws in a breath meant to regain focus, and seeks out the connection again. When he can’t find it, he claws through his mind in a desperate, artless search. Where is it? Where is _she?_ Did something happen to her? She isn’t strong enough to block out the bond, neither of them are – not that he’s really tried. No. Something must have happened to her.

Kylo still knows the way to her, as though the bond has seared its route into his mind, but every ounce of his focus has burned up in fury and fear. He slams his foot down as though it could make the shuttle go faster. If anyone has hurt Rey – if anyone has even _touched_ her – then Kylo will make them beg for a swift death.  
  


* * *

  
Rey is lost inside her own mind. The bond she shares with Kylo blinds her to everything else. A thick golden thread, connecting them through the galaxy, spits out fiery sparks as it flies past planets and moons. It speeds towards a menacing ship, where a menacing man sits beside a menacing throne. His eyes are closed and there’s a line creasing his forehead, but he’s more thoughtful than angry. Just as the thread stretches to strike his chest, Rey wrenches out of the Force’s imposed meditation with a gasp.

It takes a moment for her surroundings to sink back in. Grass beneath her, the chirps of porgs around her, a sea breeze and the taste of salt in the air. She is anchored. Rey staggers over to the large pot of tea. She dips her cup in and scrunches up her face at the taste. She knocks it back anyway, and then goes for another cup with shaking hands.

She should have blocked the Force out in its entirety when she’d had the chance. Now she’s seen Kylo, and has to assume that he has seen her, too. More than that, she knows where he is. Even without knowing his co-ordinates, Rey is confident that she could find him. She could just hop into her stolen ship and start flying, and somehow she would be drawn to him. It must be the same on Kylo’s side, and now he’ll be coming for her. She needs to cut herself off from the Force, _completely_ , and then get the hell off the planet. If he can’t sense her, he can’t track her.

Rey drains one more cup and then throws it aside with a shout of frustration. This _damn_ bond!

She runs to and from Luke’s hut in a panicked daze. She has no lightsaber, and her staff won’t hold up against Kylo if he decides to attack her. Kriff, _she_ won’t hold up against Kylo if he decides to attack her. Even taking his prodigious use of the Force and his lightsaber out of the equation, he has a brute physical strength that Rey doubts she could overcome. Whether Kylo wants to fight or just talk, Rey’s best course of action is to run.

She’ll just have to hope that the tea is enough to drown out the bond completely. With still-trembling hands, she fills up the bottles Luke had left behind and prays that he’d washed them all out after drinking that strange green milk. If there’s anything that could make the tea taste worse, it would be that.

Rey scours Luke’s hut one last time for anything that might be useful. There are no weapons – _why_ had she not gone to create a lightsaber when she’d had the chance? – and nothing that seems like it’d be straightforward to understand, so she jogs back out into the open air. A storm is brewing overhead, darkening the clouds into a warning gray. Rey grits her teeth and pulls her cloak tighter around her shoulders. She’ll fly off this planet, poor visibility or no.

The clouds coalesce over the rocky outcrop she had landed her ship on. The sky turns black and opens a torrent of rain. Rey stares in horror as lightning strikes her ship – once, twice – and leaves thin trails of smoke rising up dangerously close to the fuel tank. She scrambles backwards until she’s out of range of the explosion which lights up the sky. Rey shields her eyes as she falls backwards on the slippery rocks.

The storm dies down as soon as it came. Rey lies flat on her back, staring in disbelief up at the sky. Her hair plasters to her forehead, but she doesn’t move to swipe it out of the way. She’s far from an expert in storms, but no kriffing way had that been a natural occurrence.

Whoever, or whatever, had orchestrated it doesn’t matter. Rey is trapped until Kylo arrives. She stands and watches the angry waves below her crash into rocks. Her stomach roils in anticipation.

*

When Kylo’s ship breaks through the lingering clouds, Rey feels an odd sense of calm settle over her. It only lasts for a few moments, before a churning mixture of fear and fervor replaces it, but for those scant seconds Rey understands the rightness of the situation. This is where she is meant to be.

She doesn’t try to hide. What would be the point? She walks steadily over to where Kylo’s ship is in the process of landing and lets the wind whip around her. Her breaths are lost in the violent breeze.

Finally, the ship lands. The ramp hisses downwards. Kylo strides down it almost before it has hit the ground. Rey stands stock-still and takes a simple moment to just watch him. The bond hadn’t done justice to Kylo’s sheer presence. He is strength incarnate, from the powerful bulk of his body to his determined features which flicker as he lays eyes on her. Rey expects him to freeze the moment his boots hit the grass, to stare at her the way she’s staring at him, the way they had the very first time the bond activated. Instead, Kylo doesn’t break his long gait and moves faster than she anticipates. Before Rey can think to defend herself, Kylo stops in front of her. In the space of a breath, he’s wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to his chest.

Rey doesn’t move. She’s never been held like this before, by someone so large. As tactile as the bond had always felt, there was a safety in knowing that it wasn’t altogether real. She could keep some measure of distance. Now, she’s caged. There’s so _much_ of Kylo as he hunches over her. Even with the Force blocked, she can feel the relief and protectiveness rolling off him in waves. It’s in the tightness of his grip, the hammering of his heart, the slight tremble of his frame. Rey is surprised to find that she doesn’t want to wrestle away just yet. Let them have this moment. Let them pretend they can have this.

“The bond shut off,” Kylo mutters into her head. “I couldn’t feel you. I thought…” His quiet concern fades. He jerks away with a snarl and clamps two large hands onto Rey’s shoulders. “What did you _do_?”

Rey returns his scowl with a glare of her own. “Force suppressants.”

Kylo’s expression flares with anger shot through with disappointment. Still, his grip tightens as though, even in his anger, he cannot bear to let her go.

“Just like Skywalker,” he says, his lip curling at the name. “Were you planning on hiding here, too? Running away from your mistakes, just like he did?”

“I didn’t make a mistake.”

It hurts him to hear that, Rey can tell from the way he glances away, but it had to be said. Nothing has changed in the grand scheme of things. Even so, Rey finds her guard slowly lowering. Kylo didn’t immediately attack or disable her, and his anger isn’t the explosive kind she’s seen from him before. And, well, he _had_ come to her. Perhaps he’s slowly coming around to the light inside of him?

“What are you doing here?” Rey asks, trying to keep her hopes down.

“I felt you through the bond.” Kylo frowns at his choice of words. “Or, no, I…”

“Felt the bond,” Rey supplies, At Kylo’s nod, she offers a small smile. “So did I.”

“It overshadowed everything else in the galaxy.” His eyes darken with intensity. “It was the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Rey swallows. Does Kylo know that he’s leaning forwards? He seems too wrapped up in his words and conviction to be aware of himself, but Rey feels every minute movement like a spike in her bloodstream. She steps back, separating them, and doesn’t miss how disappointment replaces Kylo’s seriousness.

“So,” she says, and then has to clear her throat to clear that mortifying crack in her voice, “the bond showed you where I was, and you just turned up?”

Kylo tilts his head and looks away. He’s almost childlike in his sheepishness. “I’m not… _great_ …at forward thinking.”

The admission startles a laugh out of Rey. “Me neither.”

Kylo’s lips twitch in what looks like an involuntary response, but Rey is fixated on the sudden softness of his eyes. There’s wonder twinned there as he gazes down at her.

_Look away_ , Rey tells herself. _Move backwards. Do_ something.

She doesn’t. She can’t. An exhilarating vulnerability has trapped her in place, afraid to move closer and unwilling to put any more distance between them. The future stretches out before her in all of its terrible infinity – maybe shaped like the man in front of her, maybe shaped like his shuttle she can steal and not look back – and all Rey can do is stare.


	9. Chapter 9

 

* * *

  
Storm clouds gather as though in warning, but this time Rey has some understanding of what the Force wants. It had destroyed her ship to prevent her from leaving, and she wouldn’t put it past the damned mystical thing to destroy Kylo’s ship, too. For lack of another option, Rey invites Kylo back to one of the huts.

It’s a slow, awkward trek. Luke Skywalker’s presence lingers everywhere – perhaps literally, although Rey hopes that the Force ghost has more sense than to appear to his nephew. A group of chirruping porgs stumble across their paths.

“What the _hell_ are these things?” Kylo mutters, his dubious eyes trailing a creature as it clambers over his boot. He shakes his foot to dislodge it, although not as roughly as he might have done.

“They’re native to the island,” Rey replies with a shrug. “There are also the Caretakers, but let’s hope we don’t run into them.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“No, but they don’t like me.” Rey hesitates, and then forges ahead. “The first time the Force connected us, I thought I shot my blaster at you, but I actually just broke a million-year-old wall. It turns out the Caretakers are touchy about that kind of thing.”

Kylo huffs in amusement but doesn’t say anything. Rey feels oddly bereft. Does he even remember how to laugh anymore?

She guides them into a hut she’s never stepped foot in before. Even though the sun is still high and its light slants in through the open door, Rey busies herself with stoking a fire. The longer she can put off conversation, the better. She has a bad feeling that this meeting will end with bloodshed or tears. Maybe both.

The fire sparks to life. Rey’s face burns as she remembers what had passed between her and Kylo the last time they were like this, sat opposite one another and lit by a flickering fire.

Kylo speaks first, breaking the silence with an awkward cough. “What happened to your ship? I saw it when I landed.”

Rey fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “Lightning.”

“Ah. Unlucky.”

Rey snorts. She’s not sure luck has anything to do with it, but she won’t lend any more credence to Kylo’s _The Force wants us together_ theory.

“So you don’t have a way off this island?” Kylo asks, watching her closely.

Rey straightens up. She doesn’t like the calculating look in Kylo’s eyes.

“I’m working on it,” she tells him stiffly.

“You know I could just take you back with me.” Kylo’s voice is too soft for the threat it delivers. “You don’t have the Force. You don’t even have a lightsaber. It’d be so easy.”

Rey tamps down on her instinct to lash out. Kylo sounds like he’s talking himself into something; she’s just going to have to talk him back out of it.

“And then what?” she challenges. “You chain me to a throne?”

He’d do it. Rey doesn’t doubt that. She sees the birth and death of a hundred plans flit through his determined gaze.

“I’d fight you,” she tells him, gentle but firm. “Every step of the way, I’d fight you. You know I would.”

“But you’d _be_ there. With me.” He leans forward, beseeching, as his words almost trip over themselves in their haste. “And you’d hate it, at first, because it’s a different world than you’re used to, but if you just gave it some time –” He cuts himself off before the emotion brimming in his voice can spill from his eyes. He takes a breath to collect himself, but his voice still shakes. “If you just gave me a chance…”

Kylo shifts forwards abruptly and lowers himself to his knees. Rey tenses until she realizes he means to kneel before her and nothing else. Given his height, the move brings their faces level. Without taking his eyes off hers, Kylo shucks off his gloves and grasps her hands in his. Rey sighs and looks down at their entwined fingers in her lap. Can’t they just forget their roles for a few minutes? Can she just forget the death these hands have rained down on others, and only think about how they anchor her? Nothing makes sense, and everything is difficult, and they’re probably both going to die in some epic, galaxy-tearing battle one day anyway. What’s so wrong in drawing comfort while they can?

Kylo’s hands move to cover hers completely. Despite the blood they’re drenched in, Rey doesn’t feel threatened. She gently tugs one of her hands away and lifts it to cup Kylo’s scarred cheek. His eyes widen as they lock onto hers. His breaths are ragged against her palm. Rey’s heart pangs; there’s such tenderness within him. It’s scarred from his repeated attempts to carve it out of himself, but it’s strong and resilient. When Kylo Ren looks at her like this, it’s easy to pretend he’s Ben Solo.

His eyes darken as they drag slowly to her lips. Rey darts her tongue out without thinking. Her mouth is dry and her heart starts to race. They’re on the edge of something new and terrifying, and Kylo’s hands tighten around Rey’s as though in reassuring response to her nerves. The movement, small though it is, brushes his fingers over the thin fabric of her pants. A shiver passes through Rey. The tops of her thighs tingle, and she’s suddenly, wildly, desperate to feel that touch again.

Distracted by her quiet gasp, Kylo looks back up. If there had been nothing but desire and possessiveness in his gaze, Rey might have leant back. But there’s insecurity threading through him, bundled together with nerves and a soft, aching affection. Ben Solo has taken over for the moment.

Painfully aware that she has no real ideal what she’s doing, Rey inches forwards. She closes her eyes and, with one last, shuddering breath, leans forward. Her lips press softly against Ben’s. A heartbeat passes between them. Then, after that frozen second, Ben tilts his head and pushes in closer, deepening the kiss.  


* * *

  
Warmth. Cold.

_They fight back to back. It’s muscle memory, poetry in motion. They strike down First Order soldiers and rebels with indiscriminate swiftness._

Life. Death and decay.

_Two hands, one small, one large, grip a lightsaber’s handle. A crimson blade shrieks into existence. A mirroring cerulean blade slides out to balance it. The hands are bathed in a purple glow._

Peace. Violence.

_For every planet destroyed by malicious intent, a dreadnought severs in two. Stormtrooper helmets and bloodied Jedi robes lie strewn across a battlefield._

The Light Side.

_Under Kylo’s gaze, Rey jams a lightsaber through the chest of a red-haired man._

And the Dark.

 _Ben grins and presses a kiss to Rey’s forehead. She scrunches her nose in playful rebuke, but then buries herself in his embrace._  


* * *

_  
_ They break apart from the vision and each other, both wide-eyed and panting. Rey curves her other hand around Ben’s cheek in wordless awe. Ben lays his palms flat on her thighs.

“Balance,” Rey says, breathless.

Ben nods, his eyes lit by a sense of revelation. “Balance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Force suppressing tea: -exists-  
> The Force: BITCH YOU THOUGHT
> 
> Bear in mind that the Force vision doesn't necessarily depict what will happen in the future. It's more about ~*symbolism*~
> 
> Thank you for all your feedback! I love you with a love that is more than love.


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

  
The last of the vision fades around them. Purpose and understanding flood Rey. She almost wants to laugh from the sheer joy of it. She’d been blinded into thinking there could only be Light and Dark, but now a whole spectrum unravels before her. Embracing the balance is perhaps the only way Ben Solo can ever stand by her side. Rey sees that now. He’s gone too far to fully return to the Light, and Rey refuses to ever let the darkness inside her consume her completely, but without those constricts, they can be together. Without those constricts, they can end this war.

It’s a heavy responsibility, but Rey is ready for it. Her lips part, ready to start whatever conversation will lead to her and Ben finally, _finally_ bridging that chasm between them. But it’s Kylo Ren who shakes his head and rips his hands away from her thighs. It’s Kylo Ren who rises unsteadily to his feet and half-runs out of the hut.

Rey stares at the spot he had knelt, her joy slowly freezing. It isn’t supposed to go like this. Stars, why is _nothing_ ever simple with this man? A pulsing anger sends her up and jogging after him. The temperature has dropped and a harsh wind picks up with every step Rey takes over the grassy terrain.

“Where are you going?” she demands. Kylo’s gait slows but he doesn’t stop. “The Force told you what it wanted! What more do you need, written instructions?”

“Force visions can be misinterpreted,” he grits out, his voice almost lost in the wind.

“Not this one!”

The ferocity in Rey’s tone finally makes Kylo pause. He sets his broad shoulders and turns around, expression carefully flat. For the first time, Rey starts to panic. She’s losing him again ( _Don’t do this, Ben)_ and there’s nothing she can do ( _Please don’t go this way_ ).

“Ben,” she says quietly, as though to a cornered animal, “we both saw it.”

Softness steals over Kylo’s features before he clamps down on them again with a scowl. He shakes his head.

“I don’t know what I saw.”

Rey almost growls in frustration. Stupid bloody stubborn Skywalker men. Before she can jab an accusing finger at him, Kylo turns away from her and resumes his long stride.

“You can’t just run away from this!” Rey shouts after him.

“Yes, I can,” Kylo calls over his shoulder. “I’m getting on my ship and flying back to the First Order, and you’re coming with me.”

Rey narrows her eyes. _You’re coming with me_ , says the man walking away from her. The arrogance! She runs ahead of him and plants herself in his path. Kylo jerks to a stop before he can crash into her. He’s losing his patience, that much is clear from the thin line of his lips, but as Rey glares up at him, she reads something more. It’s layered in deep, beneath anger and defiance, but Rey has committed his moments of vulnerability to memory well enough to recognize it now. Her anger gentles.

“You’re afraid,” she murmurs.

She’s said these words to him once before. They’d been poisonous things then, spat with a kind of fascinated hatred. The fascination is still here, but so is the desire to soothe and reassure.

“Afraid,” Kylo repeats with a scoff that catches at the end, like a sob. “Rey, everything I am is tied up in the First Order. In the Dark Side. I’ve gone so far down this path that it would take me a lifetime just to get back to the crossroads.”

“That’s not true. You’re already there.”

“The things I’ve done –”

“Are awful,” Rey interrupts. There’s no point in lying, even as he accepts the words with a barely perceptible flinch. “There will be people who can’t forgive you for them. But they’re not the shackles you think they are. You can choose, right now, to be more than what you’ve done.”

Her eyes start to water the longer she stares at him. It seems impossible that Kylo can’t feel her conviction, given that the strength of it seems to sing through her veins, but his expression doesn’t soften. He wears that ugly sneer Rey hates so much. His features are by no means delicate, but they’re not meant to be twisted like this.

“Do you think I can just flip a switch and go back to the Light?” he asks, with such disdain that Rey holds back a wince.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” she says, as evenly as she can. “You saw the vision. We’d be something else. Not wholly Light, not wholly Dark. Gray. Balanced.”

Kylo’s expression flickers at the mention of _We_. Rey wonders if he feels the same fear and exhilaration contained in that tiny word as she does.

“You wanted to build something new, well, here’s your chance.” Rey swallows down the last of her reservations and holds out a hand. A familiar gesture between them now, but laden with so much meaning that her fingers tremble. “Together.”

_Please, Ben,_ Rey thinks as Kylo stares down at her hand. _Please. I can’t keep doing this._

“You know I can’t go to the Resistance.” Kylo’s eyes, dark with apprehension, lift to hers. “Just like you won’t join the First Order.”

Rey nods. “I know. I’m not asking you to.”

Not yet, at least. Maybe there will come a day when Ben Solo is ready to humble himself before his mother, but for now Rey is happy with them keeping to the shadows.

“But the First Order is a plague that’s thrown the whole galaxy off-kilter,” she continues. Her jaw sets in determination. “I’m not saying we have to destroy it, but we need to keep them – keep _anyone_ – from total domination.”

Her breaths are loud even in the blowing wind around them. She’s painfully aware that her fingers are still outstretched. Her skin starts to ache in the chilly air, and this discomfort brings with it the horrible clarity of just how much she wants Ben Solo to reach out and meet her halfway.

“We can go looking for books about the Force, or – or learn things from Force ghosts, or old teachers.” Rey knows she’s rambling, throwing out anything that might interest Kylo and hoping that something sticks. She has a dreadful, gnawing feeling that she alone won’t be enough. The thought causes her chest to twinge. She’s never been enough. “You won’t be bored, I promise. You could –”

Kylo cuts her off with a kiss. Rey’s hand gets crushed between their chests, but she doesn’t care. She kisses him back, fierce and desperate. When he draws away, she finds she’s loath to let him go.

“I’m not saying no,” he says gently, tipping her chin up with his forefinger. “I’m just saying that I can make more of a difference as the Supreme Leader than I can rattling around the galaxy on some ancient freighter. I’ll have access to those books, and I’ll know where to find those teachers. And,” he takes a deep breath, “when the time is right, I can gather enough intel to bring the First Order to its knees.”

Rey lowers her eyes. It’s not perfect, it’s not what she wants, but it’s a start. It’s practical. Still, disappointment creeps through her. All she can think to say is a bewildered, “You’re not coming with me.”

Kylo sighs, low and heavy. “No, not yet.”

Disappointment sharpens into a spike that jabs Rey.

“You’ll have more power than anyone in the galaxy as Supreme Leader,” she says, trying not to make it sound like an accusation even though she’s glaring at him. “How do you know that it won’t drag you back down into the Dark?”

_How do I know you won’t forget me? How do I know you’ll remember the things we could be together?_

Kylo moves away just enough to clutch Rey’s hand with both of his. He leans in so close that Rey thinks he might kiss her again, but he stops short and only looks at her.

“I swear, I want everything we saw in that vision. All of it. All of you.” His sincerity might have been terrifying if Rey didn’t long for what he was promising. “I need you to trust that I’ll come back.”

Rey blinks away tears. Everything she can think to say gets released instead as a shuddering breath. She doesn’t want to let him go and take the risk that he might be lost forever, even if the risk is more than justified. Kylo’s hands tighten around hers.

“Trust me,” he says, his own voice shaking. “Please.”

Rey’s breath catches in her chest. The boy Kylo Ren used to be is clawing his way out of his self-made prison again, this time perhaps for good. But he can’t do it alone, Rey understands now. The Supreme Leader of the First Order has entire planets under thrall, and millions of faceless soldiers ready to carry out his every whim. Ben Solo could topple all of that. He just needs someone to believe in him.

So Rey nods and squeezes her fingers around his.

“I trust you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I had a hell of time reasoning why Kylo/Ben would be all "lol okei" about turning his back on a position which would give him pretty much all the resources in the galaxy to bring about balance, even if doing so meant he got to be with Rey straight away. I figured: he wouldn't. Boy can be an unbelievable idiot, yes, but even he sees the flaws in logic in Rey's "books will save us!" plan. But patience, darling shippers.
> 
> We're coming to the end of this story, because it was never my intention to write a galaxy-conquering fic (other, better writers have tackled this - if you're new to the Reylo fandom after The Last Jedi, then hit me up for fic recs because BOI CAN I DELIVER). However, I'm working on a couple of things, including the Reylo Valentine Fic Exchange over on tumblr, so keep your eyes out :)
> 
> Thank you a billion times over for your continued support! Every comment, kudos and bookmark warms my little shrivelled heart <3 Next and maybe final chapter should be out soon. Love!


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

“These Force visions of yours are very convenient, Rey,” Leia notes as the latest base prepares to evacuate around them. “This is the third time in eight weeks that you’ve been alerted to our discovery.”

“Yeah,” Rey says, trying to will down her blush. “I’ve been – communing a lot with the Force lately and it’s, uh, it’s really helping me out.”

She doesn’t know why she’s lying. She’d already told the General about her bond with Ben, after all. Except that that conversation had happened before Rey had stolen kisses from Leia’s son, before they had promised their futures to each other, before they’d fallen asleep together from halfway across the galaxy.

Leia doesn’t smile, although there’s a knowing light in her eyes.

“The Force seems to be favoring the Light recently,” she says, watching Rey closely.

“The Force has found a balance.” Rey’s unused to this kind of doublespeak, and doesn’t particularly like it. She stumbles over the words that flow from Leia like poetry. “I don’t think it can be Light after… after everything, but it’s trying to make amends the only way it can.”

“I see.” Leia watches the newly-minted Rebellion soldiers haul crates onto one of their few freighters. Her eyes are misty. “And do you think the Force is ready to return?”

Rey follows the General’s gaze, mainly so she does not have to look the woman in the eye and disappoint her. She hasn’t seen Ben in person since he’d dropped her off on a nearby planet with a commlink, credits, and a promise. She’d thrown her arms around his neck and buried her face into his chest. He’d stiffened at first, uncertain, but slowly brought his arms around her waist and held her to him.

“Trust me,” he’d murmured in her ear one last time.

Three months have passed since then, with only the bond bringing Ben temporarily back to Rey’s side. He looks more drawn with each visit, but always greets her with that crooked smile that’s starting to do something strange to Rey’s chest. _Treason is exhausting_ , he’ll say, easing away her worries with a kiss. He’s always gone too soon for her liking.

“He won’t come back yet,” Rey tells Leia quietly. “Give it time.”

Leia takes the news with the grace that comes with decades’ worth of disappointment. She nods once in acceptance and then lifts her chin again, every inch a royal leader.

“Keeping us safe is a start,” she says. Her eyes turn flinty as she looks at Rey. “I’m trusting you to prize the safety of the Rebellion over whatever hopes you have for my son.”

“Of course, General!” The words come out more flustered than Rey intended. She thinks she prefers the doublespeak over this frank almost-admonishment. Leia nods once. Before the older woman can turn to leave, Rey blurts out, “But – there _is_ hope.”

For the first time, Leia’s features soften with a smile. “I know.”

* * *

They settle next on another abandoned Rebellion base, this one somehow in even worse condition than the one on Crait. Even Leia had groaned upon seeing it.

“It’s temporary,” she assured the gathered Rebellion, flicking a disparaging gaze around the control room. “Our allies are starting to come out of the woodwork. That means better supplies, more money, and new recruits.”

Rey doesn’t want to attribute that solely to Ben’s hard work, but she knows that the Rebellion would be a smoking crater in the ground if not thanks to him. He passes along intel by Force bond when possible, and over heavily encrypted commlink line when not. One day, the Rebellion will know the danger he’s putting himself in to help them. Rey will make certain of that.

She stands guard outside the hangar on the first night at the new base. Privately, she thinks that an aerial attack might actually improve things, but Leia gave her request and Rey, still not an official member of the Rebellion, decided to grant it. It’s a cold night, made chillier by a brisk wind that howls from the mountains around them.

The air grows denser.

Rey has a second to reflect on how she used to dread this feeling before she’s throwing herself into the empty space Ben will materialize in. Sure enough, he catches her around the waist and brings her close to his chest.

“You’re safe, then?” he asks, the amused words muffled in her hair.

Rey nods. “Thanks to you.” She pulls back and can’t stifle her sharp intake of breath at his appearance. He’s all bloodshot eyes, gray skin, and mussed hair. “You look…”

“Yeah.” Ben detaches himself from her with a groan that doesn’t detract from his wry look. “I don’t know if you know, but the Rebellion managed another miraculous escape. Hux is about to have an aneurism. He’s convinced we have a spy in the ranks. Don’t worry,” he adds quickly as Rey presses her lips together in concern, “he doesn’t know what I’m doing.”

Rey nods, although she isn’t convinced. “Make sure you keep it that way.”

“I’ll keep him off the scent, but I won’t discourage him from looking.” Ben’s eyes glint in dark amusement. “It stops him from planning the mutiny he thinks I’m not aware of.”

There might have been a time when Rey’s blood wasn’t constantly spiking from stress, but she can’t remember it. She lets out a long sigh, and Ben’s lips quirk in response.

“I’ll be gone before they can try anything,” he promises her, leaning forward to press a kiss to her forehead.

Rey’s about to wave him away, but then she realizes what Ben might mean. She stares up at him and tries to tamper down her hopes.

“You’re leaving the First Order soon?” she asks, more breathlessly than she’d like.

“I can’t destabilize the entire operation by myself,” he admits. Then, with more than a trace of annoyance, “Despite what I might have thought.”

Rey holds back a smile. For all his fraught history with his family, Ben takes after the stubborn Skywalker clan more than he’d care to admit. Who else has that kind of impenetrable resistance to common sense?

“I’m transferring funds to an account the First Order can’t trace,” he continues. “Some of the money can go towards rebuilding the Rebellion.”

Hope rises in Rey, and not just for the possibility of some half-decent ships and weapons.

“You’ll fight with them?” she asks. _With us? With me?_

“Not to victory.” At Rey’s confused frown, Ben elaborates, “I won’t let the First Order dominate the galaxy, but I still can’t believe in the Rebellion’s ideals. Their version of democracy devastated the galaxy before, and it’ll do it again if we give them the chance.”

“You’ll fight until there’s balance,” Rey translates, trying to keep the disappointment from her words. She still fiercely believes in the vision of ultimate balance the Force had shown them both back on Ahch-To, but time has eased her back into reality. The Rebellion needs her, her _friends_ need her, and she can’t chase after the Force’s will until she’s sure that her friends will be secure in her absence. Besides, she’d hoped Ben would’ve softened to the idea of fighting alongside her and his mother by now. “And then what?”

“Beach vacation?”

Rey folds her arms and glares. Ben sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know, Rey.” His shoulders drop almost imperceptibly as he averts his gaze. “I’m not working from any kind of plan anymore. Every path I’ve ever tried to follow has come to a dead end.”

Rey’s aggravation subsides. She’d prefer Ben’s anger over this frustrated sense of loss. His helplessness muddies the bond, almost suffocating Rey in its despair. Before it can drown them both, Rey grips his hands in hers and tugs on them, demanding his attention.

“This path is different,” she promises. “This path, we walk together.”

Ben lifts his gaze and, as he so often does, traps Rey with its intensity. It should be impossible for any one person to say so much without speaking a word, but Rey understands his doubts, fears, and promises all from one look. Mingled in with _What if I’m not strong enough?_ is the stubborn _I will keep you safe_ and, beneath that, the terrifying depths of his feelings for her. There, Rey fears a different kind of drowning.

“Maybe once the First Order is under new leadership and the Rebellion is in a stronger position, we can broker some kind of truce?” she asks, her mouth dry as she tries to reassure him.

Ben blinks, and his hold over Rey breaks.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “maybe.”

He leans down. The bond severs them a second before his hovering lips can touch hers.

Rey stares at the place he had stood. Her breaths mist in the cold air. Seeing Ben at all is a gift, but each brief visit only reminds her that it isn’t enough. She wants more.

* * *

It’s another four, torturous months before Rey watches Ben Solo stagger down the ramp of a stolen ship, clutching his side and groaning. She rushes forward just in time to support him as he stumbles onto the grassy terrain of the half-forgotten planet she had sent the coordinates for.

“Are you alright?” she asks, hoisting him up. Ben winces again at the rough movement. In turn, Rey grimaces at the hot gush of blood that sticks her shirt to her side. “How bad is it?”

“Sore but not too deep. The getaway wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped,” he says, collapsing onto a nearby rock. “I’d say you should see the other guys, but I blew them up.”

Rey laughs more than the quip calls for, her heart giddy as she falls to her knees before him. She can’t believe he’s really here, that their chances of turning the tides of war is within such close range. A small part of her, the thoughts bred from a lifetime of hardship on Jakku, had kept her awake at night with fears that this was all some elaborate trap, and that Kylo Ren would drag her away in cuffs the moment he laid eyes on her. That feral, snarling creature that Jakku created grows smaller with each person Rey lets in to her heart; one day, she hopes it will disappear forever.

She silences it for now by surging forwards and kissing Ben with such enthusiasm that he almost falls backwards over the rock. His lips lift against hers, and Rey kisses him all the more for it. His smiles are rare, treasured things, and she rewards them handsomely for their appearances.

Ben steadies himself by gripping her waist. The strength in his fingers sends a jolt of heat through Rey, and she is oh so tempted to deepen the kiss and fulfil the promise they’ve only ever hinted at before. But then Ben pulls away, and Rey has to resign herself to duty.

“There are some codes I should bring to the General before the First Order changes them,” Ben says, looking behind Rey at his ship.

Rey doesn’t call him out on refusing to grant Leia the title of mother. He’s already made impossible strides away from Kylo Ren, and if he isn’t ready to fully inhabit Ben Solo yet, then Rey won’t hurry him.

“We need to treat your injury first,” she says, leaning back and eyeing his side critically.

Ben shakes his head. “On the ship.”

“Do you have a medkit?”

“Don’t need one.” Ben gets to his feet with another wince. “Have you healed through the Force before?”

Rey’s mouth drops open before she can stop it. “That’s possible?”

She sounds naïve even to her own ears. For a moment, she expects the eye-rolling condescension of Luke Skywalker. But his nephew is unexpectedly kinder, and only nods.

“It was never one of my strengths,” he admits, “but I can try to teach you.”

Rey helps him limp back to the ship. She’s quiet and contemplative as she guides Ben into the cockpit. She has more power than she could have ever dreamed, and yet there’s still so much she doesn’t know. It seems like it would take a lifetime just to learn all the possibilities, let alone master them.

Ben waits until they’ve taken off to address the fact that he’s bleeding over the upholstery. Beneath Rey’s exasperation at his nonchalance is a small, sad thought that he must have been in this situation many times before, injured but too focused on the task at hand to allow his pain to ease. At least he isn’t alone this time.

As though in tandem with her thoughts, Ben stands and raises the edge of his shirt. He takes Rey’s hand and presses it to his wound. His breath hitches in pain as Rey applies pressure, but there’s no apprehension in his gaze as he looks down at her. He trusts her, Rey realizes.

“Close your eyes,” Ben murmurs. “Feel the Force. We’re just vessels for it. Manifestations. We’re its servants, but it needs us, too. Harness it to your will.”

Rey’s breath steadies as her eyes slide closed. The Force pulses around her, weaving through the ship, twining around her fingers, sliding against Ben’s skin.

_Heal._

She envisions a crisscrossing web of light where his skin is split open. The strings pull steadily tighter until his skin has knitted back together without so much as a scar. Rey lets out a shuddering breath as she stares down at her hand. The injury had been comparatively small, likely non-lethal if not painful, but if she could develop the skill… Would there any limits to her power?

“You always amaze me,” Ben murmurs. He lifts her chin so she can see the unhidden awe shining in his eyes. “That’s not a technique most people just pick up. I expected it to take a few tries.”

“I’m not most people,” Rey says, earning a quiet laugh.

“You’re a wonder.” Ben rests his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. “You’re my wonder.”

Rey feels his slow, contented breaths, and marvels at the fact that he’s truly here. She doesn’t have to worry about the bond snatching him away. He is here, and he is hers. The Force laces a home around them, promising power and safety and hope.

Ben cups her cheeks in the palm of his hands. Rey closes her eyes and basks in it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I should have mentioned like a month ago is that the title for this fic is taken from my absolute favourite song, [Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvh_0CuMMtM). “I feel the air retreat/I know you’re here with me” gives me such Force Bond vibes, plus the idea of being in someone’s head as well as their heart (and being really pissed about it) makes me think of Rey and Kylo’s headspaces at the end of The Last Jedi. So please, give it a listen, but be warned that it’s probably not something to listen to unless you have headphones.
> 
> ANYWAY WE ARE DONE! Thank you so, so much for all your support. It has meant the world to me. I hope you can stick around for my next few fics :) A few of you asked for fic recs, you can find them [here](http://below-the-starry-clusters-bright.tumblr.com/post/170157964312/fic-recs) on my tumblr.
> 
> Until next time! <3


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